Trump goes all Napoleonic on Facebook

President Donald “Prince of Orange” Trump has blasted Facebook for revealing to investigators that President Putin’s propaganda unit funded racially inflammatory adverts to help him get elected.

Trump said Facebook was “anti-Trump” and questioned its role during the 2016 presidential campaign, amid probes into alleged Russian interference in the election and possible collusion by Trump’s associates.

Facebook is handing over 3,000 political ads to congressional investigators that it said were bought by Russian entities during and after last year’s presidential contest.

“Facebook was always anti-Trump. The networks were always anti-Trump”, Trump said on Twitter, leveling the same charge against the New York Times and the Washington Post. “Collusion?”

US Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, which is among those investigating Russia’s role, said he expected to have the ads by next week and that they should be made public.

“You really need to see them ... to recognise how cynical an effort this was by the Kremlin, how they sought to just accentuate those divisions ... and drive American against American”, Schiff told MSNBC, adding that Facebook and Twitter executives should testify publicly about the issue.

“I have concerns about how long it took Facebook to realize the Russians were advertising on their network”, Schiff told MSNBC.

Trump himself has previously praised Facebook and credited it with helping him win the November election. His campaign has said it spent some $70 million on Facebook ads, and it also ran a live Facebook show.